


if you loved me/why'd you leave me

by LoveWithAGirl



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Future Fic, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Yasha-Centric, aftermath of Major Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-18
Updated: 2018-07-18
Packaged: 2019-06-12 14:12:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15341550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoveWithAGirl/pseuds/LoveWithAGirl
Summary: “You brought out the best of me.” There’s a rumble of thunder in the distance, as if in response to her words, but Yasha doesn’t look for it, doesn’t look for the storms she follows, doesn’t look away from the slight mound of dirt in front of her that covers the best friend she ever had. She’s not sure how long she’s been kneeling here, now, but the others haven’t come to check on her, so it can’t have been long enough to worry them. “I don’t know how to be that without you.” There’s another sound of thunder, closer this time, and Yasha opens her hands, looks down at the two religious symbols she’s been holding.The Moonweaver’s symbol is beautiful. It’s different from the Stormlord’s, but Yasha can still appreciate the grace of it, can appreciate that Mollymauk had needed it, can appreciate the others for saving it for her. She’s unspeakably grateful that he’d carried two, that they’d been able to bury him with one and keep the other for her, and as the thunder grows closer Yasha finally looks to the sky.





	if you loved me/why'd you leave me

**Author's Note:**

> Here is a canon-compliant future fic. This takes place after the three remaining members of the Mighty Nein rescue Yasha and Jester and Fjord, after Lorenzo has already sold them.
> 
> This is Yasha visiting Molly's grave for the first time.
> 
> This is my grief as Yasha's.
> 
> (Check the end notes for music to listen to while you read this)

“You brought out the best of me.” There’s a rumble of thunder in the distance, as if in response to her words, but Yasha doesn’t look for it, doesn’t look for the storms she follows, doesn’t look away from the slight mound of dirt in front of her that covers the best friend she ever had. She’s not sure how long she’s been kneeling here, now, but the others haven’t come to check on her, so it can’t have been long enough to worry them. “I don’t know how to be that without you.” There’s another sound of thunder, closer this time, and Yasha opens her hands, looks down at the two religious symbols she’s been holding.

The Moonweaver’s symbol is beautiful. It’s different from the Stormlord’s, but Yasha can still appreciate the grace of it, can appreciate that Mollymauk had needed it, can appreciate the others for saving it for her. She’s unspeakably grateful that he’d carried two, that they’d been able to bury him with one and keep the other for her, and as the thunder grows closer Yasha finally looks to the sky.

There’s a brief moment where she can see the moon between two clouds; the wind seems to die down, and there is nothing but silence around her. Yasha does not look away, loops the string attached to the symbols around her belt with practiced hands and reaches for the deck that she’d placed in front of her. She doesn’t know if any of the others have shuffled it or looked at it, but she picks it up and draws the card on top. She doesn’t look down at it until the clouds close in around the moon and the wind suddenly swirls around her.

It’s the Moon, Molly’s favorite card, and Yasha forces herself to be careful as she sets it face up on top of the deck, and then puts all the cards back down on the ground. She can hear her heartbeat in her ears as she racks her brain, trying to remember what the tiefling had told her all the times he pulled the card for himself or for her, not the self-reflecting answers he’d given to the people he read fortunes for but the truth of it.

“I killed him.” It slips out without her realizing it, and the words linger in the silence that surrounds her; Yasha closes her eyes and pictures Mollymauk’s playful smile, hears his laugh, and she cannot stop the tears that start to roll down her cheeks. “I killed him. I told him I would, and he laughed in my face, like he thought he was above death. You knew you weren’t. You knew death was inevitable, and he did not, and now you’re both dead. It didn’t bring you back. I knew it wouldn’t.” The words spill out unchecked, and Yasha can hear how choked her voice is becoming. She digs her fingers into the ground on either side of the deck, opens her eyes to look back down at the Moon card, and there’s a rumble of thunder directly overhead. 

She expects rain to start pouring down any minute now, is sure that the weather is going to reflect the storm she feels inside.

She does not realize that the Stormlord has different plans until there is suddenly something gentle and white falling on her hands, on her deck, on the grave in front of her. Yasha hurries to brush the dirt off her hands, rubs them clean on her pants and picks up the cards, carefully tucking them into a pouch at her side as the snow continues to fall around her.

“I knew it wouldn’t bring you back. But I had to do it. You-you were a better person than me. You would have killed him for what he was doing to all those people, to Fjord and Jester and me.” She blinks hard as snowflakes catch on her eyelashes, realizes that the wind has died down, that there is once again just stillness around her as the air grows even colder. “I didn’t kill him for that. He was evil, but that’s not why I killed him. I killed him for killing you.” She bites her tongue hard, tastes blood in her mouth, and it’s enough to steel herself, enough to stop the tears.

He’d have laughed himself sick to see her with tears frozen to her cheeks, and she would have laughed with him, just like he wanted.

“Beau called him a monster, but he wasn’t. He was just a human. Just a man.” She takes a deep breath, rolls out her neck, and then reaches out to rest a hand on the grave. “You and I both know that that’s even worse.” The dirt and snow are cold under her hand, the snow cold as it falls on her arms where the shawl doesn’t cover, but Yasha doesn’t pay it mind. She hopes Molly isn’t cold, wherever he is. She likes to think he isn’t.

“I didn’t say that, though. I didn’t want-I didn’t want Caleb to hear. You and I, we talked about that. He already thinks he’s a monster. I still don’t know why. You had your guesses, but he never confirmed any of them.” She chokes on her breath for a moment, bows her head and presses her hand even more firmly to the dirt in front of her; it’s packed tightly, and her hand does not sink into it, and Yasha thinks she would have been sick if she’d been able to break through it.

“None of them are holding up well.” It’s the truth, and it’s bitter on her tongue, but Yasha pushes forward, has to fill the silence in a way she’s never wanted to before. “Nott drinks more heavily than we ever saw, and Caleb goes very far away in his head, and they worry too much about each other and not enough themselves. Beau punches trees and sleeps with your coat, and tries to pretend she doesn’t do either. She tried to give it to me, but she needs it more. I hope you don’t mind.”

The wind pushes past her, suddenly, swirling the snow around her and in front of her, and for a brief moment it reminds her of a colorful coat swirling around the legs of her best friend as he laughed and spun in circles under the moonlight. She shakes her head to clear it, and then there’s just snow, her breath creating clouds in front of her face and cold seeping into her bones. 

“Fjord is trying to be who he was before. He’s putting on a front, but I can see the cracks in it. He keeps taking longer watches than everyone else, putting off waking up whoever is next. Jester and Beau have taken to sneaking him the stuff you bought in Berleben, for sleep.” She finally takes her hand off the grave and leans back slightly, sitting on her heels and ignoring the ache in her knees pressed to the ground, adjusting her shawl around her shoulders and looking up at the sky.

The snowfall is still gentle, soft, and she can see the clouds above. In a minute she thinks she’s going to say a prayer, but first she needs to finish. Maybe he can see them and hear them, but maybe he can only hear her right now, and she wants him to know that as broken as they are, at least they’re all alive.

“Jester doesn’t smile anymore. She still hasn’t put back on the weight she lost while Lorenzo had us and while she was with the people he sold her to. She’s woken up screaming a few times, and then she spends the rest of the day apologizing for it. It makes Beau angry.” She wraps her arms around herself and looks back down at the grave, at the coating of white that nearly covers the dirt. “She’s not angry at Jester. She keeps telling her that, but I don’t know if Jester believes it. She told me that she should have been stronger. She thinks it’s her fault we got taken.”

The wind pushes her hair back from her face for a moment before stilling again, and Yasha takes a deep breath and does not cry.

“Beau wants to go back and burn the whole town down. She got drunk one night and told me. Caleb overheard and said he would help.” It chills her more than the weather, just saying it out loud and hearing their voices in her head. “I told them it wouldn’t help. I don’t think they believed me, but at least they’re staying with us.” She falls silent, then, the words drying up as suddenly as they had come, and wind picks up again, making the snow swirl and dance around her.

Yasha sees him again, dancing delighted in the snow, with the snow, and she can’t help the smile that tugs at her lips or the tears that sting her eyes. She knows it isn’t real, but she still loses her breath when those red eyes catch hers, when a purple hand extends towards her, and she starts to reach out before catching herself.

The image fades, and Yasha is alone. There’s no one but the body of her best friend, several feets under a dusting of snow and a mound of dirt, and she curls in on herself and lets the tears come. 

Ugly sounds force themselves out of her mouth as she sobs, and Yasha doesn’t think she’s ever cried like this in her life. It hurts but she can’t stop, digs her hands into the earth to try and ground herself because she feels like she’s going to fly apart with the weight of this grief that she’s been trying to carry.

She loses all sense of time as she cries, and all thoughts of her other friends leave her head. It is just her and Mollymauk here in this space, and he will never hold her hand or give her a flower or read her cards ever again. He will never say her name, will never wink at her while he plays a trick, will never lean on her when he needs comfort. She will never see him again, and she finally understands the emptiness he would describe to her that he still felt sometimes.

Empty is what she feels when the tears finally dry up, when her breathing turns ragged but manageable, when she straightens up into a kneeling position again and her knees scream at her.

Empty, empty, MT. Mollymauk Tealeaf. The best friend she’s ever had and the best person she’s ever known.

The wind pushes at her back, insistent and cold, and Yasha reaches into her little pouch, pulls out the Moon card and stares down at it.

“I am not holding up well, either. This is the most I’ve talked since…” she doesn’t want to finish the sentence, because finally saying it is going to make it real, and Yasha doesn’t know if she’s strong enough for that.

Then again, she was strong enough to survive it. She was strong enough to kill Lorenzo. She was strong enough to stay with the Mighty Nein, after. 

For Mollymauk, she can be strong enough to say it.

“This is the most I’ve talked since we were taken. They kept gags in our mouths up until we were sold.” The taste of sweat and spit and cloth is heavy in her mouth for a minute, and Yasha almost gags, takes a deep breath instead and pushes forward. “I was bought by a family who wanted someone for a fighting ring. I didn’t talk to them. From the night we were taken to the night our friends rescued me, I didn’t say a word. I didn’t even pray to the Stormlord out loud, only in my head.” It’s like she’s undone a lock, and the words pour out again as she stares at Mollymauk’s favorite card in her hand.

“I’ve barely talked to our friends, even. I listen a lot. And I, I say words. Sentences. But I don’t talk about what happened. I don’t want to burden them.” It’s not the complete truth, and Yasha can’t help but huff out a humorless laugh as she hears Molly tutting at her in her mind. “I don’t know if I can talk about it. I don’t know them well enough, Molly. I wasn’t with them like you were.” The wind gentles around her, and she gently brushes the snow from the card before putting it away with the rest of the deck.

“If you were here, you’d make me talk. You never did before. You listened when I wanted to talk, but you never made me. Now, though, I think you would. You’d know I need someone to make me.” She rests a hand on the grave in front of her again and breathes in deep, the cold making her lungs ache and reminding her that she is alive. “You told me once that being silent made you feel like a wound was festering inside of you. That’s what it’s felt like, Molly. A wound festering. Like Lorenzo killed me, not you, and I’m just a dead woman walking with a hole in my chest.”

Empty, empty, empty.

When she’d joined the circus, she and Mollymauk had shared a tent to sleep in. Some nights he woke up saying it, and nothing could snap him out of it right away. She’d learned, in time, told hold him and tell him who he was. What she knew of him, who she knew him to be, his name, over and over and over again until he would say her name back to her. 

They took care of each other. He listened to her broken parts, her secrets, and never judged her for what she couldn’t tell him. 

She’d never judged him for telling her everything. 

“And now there are these people who need my help, Mollymauk. I don’t know what to do, but I can’t leave them alone. You wouldn’t want me to. They’re my friends, I think. And friends help put each other back together. You taught me that,” she presses her hand more firmly to the dirt, the snow biting into her skin, “and I promise you, I will not forget it. I will not forget anything you taught me.”

It’s cold, and silent, and Yasha has nothing left to say. She looks up to the sky, blinking away the snow that falls in her eyes, and prays to the clouds above, to the Stormlord. She asks him to let her stay, to let her protect Molly’s friends, her friends, to let her do good by them.

Then she prays to the Moonweaver. She asks her to watch over Mollymauk, to let him be at peace, to let him know that in his death he saved them all.

It is silent and still, and the snow has built a small layer on the ground. It is easy to hear the footsteps behind her, and so Yasha stays still and does not lash out when a small hand curls over her shoulder.

“Yasha?” Jester’s voice is small and tired, and without thinking Yasha raises a hand to cover the other girl’s, looks up over her shoulder at her and meets sad eyes. “There’s stew ready, and it’s getting very cold. You should come back to the fire.” Yasha nods and squeezes Jester’s hand before letting go.

“Okay.” She braces both hands on the ground and pushes herself up carefully; her knees buckle the second she tries to shift her weight to turn, but Jester immediately catches her, tucks herself under one of Yasha’s arms and wraps her own around the aasimar’s waist, taking most of her weight. “Sorry. Thank you.” Jester squeezes her gently and shakes her head, looking up at her with those haunted eyes she’s had since they rescued her.

“Don’t be sorry. I’d have fallen if I’d been kneeling for that long.” Yasha nods and keeps looking at her, and Jester tries to smile. It looks fragile and pained, but Yasha still tries to respond, even though it feels like it fits wrong on her face. “Just walk with me. We’ll go slow.” Yasha thinks going slow sounds very good, not just right now, but for the foreseeable future.

As Jester starts slowly leading her back towards camp, still supporting most of Yasha’s weight with her strangely thin frame, Yasha thinks about her past and her future, and where they have converged.

There is still a war for the Mighty Nein to outrun. There are still demons that they are all being chased by, both achingly old and hauntingly new, and there is a grave they are going to ride away from tomorrow.

They might never be able to come back to it, and that thought stops Yasha still in her tracks. Jester stops with her, makes a sound of concern and squeezes her waist, but Yasha doesn’t look down at her; she looks up instead, blinking against the snowfall, and she sees the moon between two clouds, and she is overcome with a sense of peace.

“Yasha?” Jester’s voice is small and broken, and this time Yasha does look down at her, sees the bruise-like shadows under her eyes and thinks that they must match her own. “Are you okay?” Yasha considers lying for a moment, considers not burdening this girl with more weight, but Yasha knows that Jester is stronger than she looks.

They all are.

“No.” The word hangs between them, as soft as the snow, but Jester just nods, accepts the first truth Yasha has given her in a while, mouth twitching slightly, and Yasha nods back at her. “I am not okay. But I will be. I think we all will. It’s just going to take time.”

“Well, time we have. As long as we stay together, we can give each other as much time as we need.” It’s surprisingly wise, and Yasha feels her eyebrows go up slightly; Jester’s cheeks turn a darker blue, and she ducks her head before looking up at Yasha from under her bangs. “You are staying, right?” Her hand is warm through Yasha’s shirt, and she is still holding her weight without wavering in the slightest.

“Yes, I am staying.” She says it to her friend, and to her god, and to herself. Jester tries to smile again, and this time it looks a little more real, and as they start to walk again, Yasha holds on a little tighter. “I am staying.”

It is a promise, both to herself and to Mollymauk, wherever he is. She is going to stay, for herself and for him. She is going to stay.

If they are going to heal, they are going to have to do it together, however slow the process is.

Yasha thinks that for once in her life, she can go slow to survive.

She will survive this, and she’ll make sure that her friends do, too. She and Fjord and Jester survived what happened to them, what Lorenzo did to try and break them and then what the people who bought them did. Beau and Nott and Caleb survived Mollymauk’s death in front of them.

They all survived. They lost parts of themselves in the process, but they survived.

If they go slow, they can put each other back together. All the pieces might not fit anymore, but Molly taught Yasha how to work with that.

She will teach them, too.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading this! Please leave a comment if it meant something to you, because it meant a lot to me.
> 
> I wrote this for me, to process episode 26 and the latest Talks Machina from last night. I hope it resonates with some of you, too.
> 
> The title and first line of dialogue are from "All I Want" by Kodaline, which I listened to on repeat with a few smatterings of "Paper Walls" by Yellowcard, if anyone wants to get into my mindset while they're reading this.
> 
> If you'd like to, you can come find me and talk to me on [tumblr](https://lovewithagirl.tumblr.com/) and [twitter!](https://twitter.com/daleytwin2/)


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